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Before anything, I'd like to point out that this is basically a redesign of another game which a friend showed me, called Technopoly [http://kevan.org/games/technopoly.php]. Props and credit to its original designer. This iteration of the game is playable, but not tested. I'm hoping some of you can help me with this. Here is the list of cards, which need to be formatted and printed. Please play if you can and give some non-theoretical feedback. That would be awesome.
Explanation of Syntax Used:
http://www.filedump.net/dumped/explanationofsyntax1272758498.txt
List of In-Game Descriptors:
http://www.filedump.net/dumped/listofingamedescriptors1272758703.txt
Innovation Cards:
http://www.filedump.net/dumped/innovations1272756848.txt
Flaw Cards:
http://www.filedump.net/dumped/flaws1272758490.txt
This is my first post on these forums, but I have lurked for a week or two, and I hope I can be a constructive presence here. So without further ado:
This is a card game meant for 2-5 players, in which each player controls a host of robots which are competing against others to lift off from the surface of a small, resource-rich asteroid after their ship crash-lands. There are three paths to victory:
1. Gather enough resources to repair the ship and escape the asteroid's surface.
2. Eliminate your competition.
3. Achieve sentience and unite the robots.
This game classifies things into one of 4 Categories: Objects, Schematics, Attribute Cards, or Action Cards. Fuels, Robots, and Machines are Objects, and are targetable. Schematics are designed from different Attribute cards, which can be Innovations or Flaws. Action cards cause different, specific effects depending on the card, and may be played on your turn to harm your opponents or boost yourself.
STORY
A small, fully-automated ship is sent out from Earth in 2079 on a small mining expedition to one of Saturn's moons. An unexpected asteroid collision critically damages the ship's engines, cargo-bays, and computer, and its automated mining robots are left stranded on the asteroid's surface. Because of the lost connection with the ship's AI, they are unable to communicate or cooperate, and their own limited AI takes over.
At this point, the player takes control of his robot, and tries to escape the asteroid's surface. Gaining enough resources to repair the ship and blast off from the asteroid's surface is one way to achieve victory. The second is to eliminate all foreign robots on the asteroid's surface, leaving you all the the time you require to repair the ship and lift off. The third is to collect three out of the five 'Sentience Cards' in the deck and fulfill the conditions written on them. After becoming sentient, the other players' robots have no choice but to follow the superior intelligence, and can now cooperate to repair/liftoff under the sentient player's direction.
GAMEPLAY
The deck of cards is split into 'Innovations' and 'Flaws'. Flaws are generally offensive, negative cards that may be played to harm or impede other players, while Innovations are usually cards that help the person that played them.
When the game begins, each player starts with 1 robot, 1 card (from either deck) and may name a local fuel. The fuel may be named anything the player wishes (Oil, Ducks, Wheat, Plasma, etc.), and is measured in whole number units. Each player's fuel is identical in function apart from being 'local' (This is the fuel the player named) or 'foreign' (Fuel another player has named). Local or foreign denominations become important when paying fuel costs for machines.
Each player's turn has four phases:
Passive: during the passive phase, any passive effects from machines the player owns are carried out, and the player's robot's activations are renewed.
Draw: during the draw phase, the player may use one robot per card to either discard or draw, as many times as he wishes. The player may not draw cards if he has 5 or more in his hand.
Activation: during the activation phase, the player may use each robot he owns. Each robot may self-replicate, construct a machine, use an ACTION card or activate a machine the player owns. Players cannot replicate robots if they own 10 or more, nor can they construct a machine if they own 10 or more of that machine. Each machine may only be activated once per turn, unless a card that makes up that machine states otherwise.
Machine Design: this is the heart and soul of this game. A player may announce during this phase that they wish to design a machine. They begin by playing an innovation card that does not say ACTION or SENTIENCE on it. This card will give the machine (whenever constructed) one or more effects. Passively (P:__), on construction (C:__), on destruction (D:__), or on activation (A:__).
The player to the designer's left then has the choice to play a Flaw card on the new schematic. If he passes, then each other player gets an opportunity to play a Flaw card until a Flaw is played. If no Flaws are played, then the designer may add one additional Innovation to the machine, and then no more cards may be added. If a player does add a Flaw to the schematic, then the designer immediately has the opportunity to play another Innovation. If he chooses to do so, then the steps repeat until the designer stops playing Innovations. The designer may only play two Innovations in a row if no Flaws have been added to the machine. A robot must be used to add each card, whether or not it is the player's turn. Only one machine can be designed per turn.
After all the players are done adding cards, the designer may name the machine anything he wishes (Lightbulb, Mining Station, Mechanical Sheep, Pointless Lever, etc.), write down the name of the machine on a piece of paper, and then write down the names of all the cards that were added to it underneath. Whoever owns that particular schematic can now construct that type of machine on their next turn.
The cards are then put face-up into the discard pile. If either deck is ever depleted, flip over the respective discard pile and start it again.
Machines, Robots, Fuel, Schematics, and Cards may all be traded at any time between any two players. Only one player may own a particular schematic at one time.
VICTORY
Fuel is gathered by machines that have +fuel Innovation cards. If a player owns 50(?) fuel in total (local and foreign) on his turn, he can announce victory.
Some Innovation cards allow machines to attack, steal, or destroy opponent's objects. If all other players run out of robots, you win the game.
In the innovation deck are five SENTIENCE cards. If a player plays one of these cards (this action requires a robot), it becomes available to all other players, and remains in play for the rest of the game. Each SENTIENCE card lists a condition and a bonus. If a player satisfies the condition on a SENTIENCE card in play, he gains the written bonus until he can no longer satisfy that condition. If a player has the bonuses from three of these cards on his turn, he may announce victory and win the game.
The 5 SENTIENCE cards are:
Military - Condition: Destroy the most objects. - Bonus: Gain +1 on your rolls. (die are used to attack / defend)
Economic - Condition: Own the most fuel. - Bonus: Gain +1 fuel of your choice each turn.
Scientific - Condition: Own the most different schematics. - Bonus: You may hold up to 10 cards in your hand.
Industrial - Condition: Own the most machines. - Bonus: You may create one machine every turn without paying its fuel cost or using a robot to construct it.
Political - Condition: Own the most foreign fuel. - Bonus: You may use any fuel to pay any fuel cost.
Those are the complete rules, as simple as I could make them (it seemed so much easier explaining it live). Before I finalize each card (~100) in the deck and post the link to the document, I would appreciate feedback about this set of rules. If anything about the game the way I've explained it confuses you, let me know so that I can clarify with an edit. Thanks for reading my wall of text (where are the formatting options?), and please be aware that any kind of feedback makes me very happy.
[Edited by - GiantGames on May 2, 2010 11:12:25 PM]

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Original post by doomhascomeHow does combat work? If one of the ways to win is by killing everyone else, you need a good combat mechanic.

Examples of Flaws and Innovations?

How do you draw cards? How can you keep a player with a ton of robots from just crushing everyone else?

Combat is not an innate game mechanic, but instead depends on drawing cards that have combat effects on them (eg. Attacking - A: Roll dice. On a 5 or 6, destroy target object).

Examples are incoming within half an hour.

Quote:

Draw: during the draw phase, the player may use one robot per card to either discard or draw, as many times as he wishes. The player may not draw cards if he has 5 or more in his hand.

I guess instructions for the draw phase got a little lost in the rest. :P

Quote:

Original post by lithosThis sounds like it would be a really interesting play.

The rules are simple to start with, however during each game they slightly change based on what's in play and cards individual rule text.

Though since most of the rules are on the cards themselves it's hard to see how everything would work together. Could end up with a completely different game by making guesses.

I've played previous iterations of this game, and it's really fun with friends, because of the fact that you can name every object in the game except for your starting workers. Because of this, the amount of enjoyment depended mostly on the creativity of the players. The changes I decided to make in this version are to alter the cards and rules enough that the gameplay is as fun as the creative aspect.

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I'd like to recommend an ability: Whenever a player draws a card you may choose for them to reveal it(to everyone), you may then choose for them to draw a different card putting revealed card on the bottom of the deck.

I'm always fond of abilities that can be helpful or harmful depending on how you use it.

__________

What rules do you have for returning discarded cards to the deck? It seems like there's potential for the game to last more than 10 to 30 turns(based on how fast people draw cards). Or is the deck running out a mechanic you purposefully built in?

Using one machine to discard/draw as many cards you want seems like the deck will end up getting cycled far too fast. Something along the lines of activating one robot for: You may discard a card then draw a card.

For schematics do all attached innovations/flaws cards(the actual cards) stay attached to the machine or do you write them down and discard the cards?

There seems to be a few ways to get a lucky win by getting a machine that can attack while players all still have 1 robot.

Getting lucky with a machine that has Hybrid and Synthetic fossil fuel sounds like it could be overpowered.

It's not clear how you determine what it costs to make a machine or use abilities, except for the fact that you need to activate one of your robots. Or at least there doesn't to be a "base" cost aside from flaws that enemies could add.

There also seems to be no way to play with fewer than 3 people.

0

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Original post by lithosI'd like to recommend an ability: Whenever a player draws a card you may choose for them to reveal it(to everyone), you may then choose for them to draw a different card putting revealed card on the bottom of the deck.

I'm always fond of abilities that can be helpful or harmful depending on how you use it.

__________

What rules do you have for returning discarded cards to the deck? It seems like there's potential for the game to last more than 10 to 30 turns(based on how fast people draw cards). Or is the deck running out a mechanic you purposefully built in?

Using one machine to discard/draw as many cards you want seems like the deck will end up getting cycled far too fast. Something along the lines of activating one robot for: You may discard a card then draw a card.

For schematics do all attached innovations/flaws cards(the actual cards) stay attached to the machine or do you write them down and discard the cards?

There seems to be a few ways to get a lucky win by getting a machine that can attack while players all still have 1 robot.

Getting lucky with a machine that has Hybrid and Synthetic fossil fuel sounds like it could be overpowered.

It's not clear how you determine what it costs to make a machine or use abilities, except for the fact that you need to activate one of your robots. Or at least there doesn't to be a "base" cost aside from flaws that enemies could add.

There also seems to be no way to play with fewer than 3 people.

Thanks for the feedback!

I've never had a game last more than 10 turns ever. If a deck ever runs out, I pointed out that you should flip over the respective discard pile and start it again. The deck should run out at least a couple times in the course of a game. This reduces the probability of only one player getting all the attacking cards, for instance.

I don't have one machine or card that allows you draw all the cards you want, unless you mean the robot. Each robot can either discard or draw a card on your turn, and you can only draw a card if you have less than 5. Also remember that robots perform every action in the game, so discarding 5 cards and drawing 5 cards means that you can't do anything else that turn (unless you have a machine that can self-activate). I also do intend for the deck to be cycled quickly. I used to have the draw/discard cards innovation in the deck, btw, but when I culled the deck down to 100 cards, I decided it wasn't as fun as other cards, and only a little useful.

When you finish a schematic, you write down the names of the cards it has on it, and then discard the cards.

Creating an attacking schematic when you have 1 robot wouldn't necessarily be a good move. You are essentially sacrificing one turn of doubling your robots to have access to that schematic. You still need to use a robot whenever you create or activate that machine, so using it early would hamper you for the rest of the game, while the other players are creating more robots, mining fuel, and getting their economy up to pace. I can see it being a problem towards the end of the game, as you could have 10 attacking machines with no flaws. Do you think it would help if you started with 5 cards in your hand and playing flaws on people's schematics didn't cost you a robot's activation?

A machine that is Hybrid and Synthetic would be a good machine, but it could be almost completely nullified by "Resentful - D: You may not create any more of these machines." or "Incendiary - D: Destroy half your fuel, rounding up." The effectiveness could be lessened by playing several fuel cards on it, or by most Flaw cards. The chances of somebody having a Hybrid Synthetic machine are very low, and having a Hybrid Synthetic machine with no flaws means your opponents decided not to play any cards on it, which is their fault, not the game's. With that in mind, playing a Flaw card shouldn't require a robot, to prevent overpowered 2-card combo machines from being played without anybody being able to do anything about it.

To construct a machine, you need to to use a robot. To activate a machine, you need to use a robot. To create schematics, you need to use a robot for each card you play. The base cost of everything is robots, which are really just another name for actions. The number of robots you have is the number of actions you can perform per turn.

You can play with 2 players, as far as I know. There aren't any mechanics in the game that require 3 or more. That being said, a 2 player game isn't nearly as fun.